Bioware cofounder and General Manager Dr. Ray Muzyka waded in to the small-but-growing Internet furor over the ending to Mass Effect 3 today, promising to take fan complaints about the conclusion into account while crafting new "content initiatives" for the game. But it's hard to say at this point whether such new content will represent a significant change for the game's controversial ending, or just add more context and closure to the established narrative.

In a message posted on the official Bioware blog, Muzyka said he was "genuinely surprised" by the negative reactions to the game's ending, calling such responses "incredibly painful." He added he is trying to "accept the criticism and feedback with humility," and said the development team is listening to that feedback while creating new content for the game.

Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You'll hear more on this in April. We're working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we've received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.

But these comments run somewhat counter to those offered by Bioware-Mythic Senior Creative Director Paul Barnett at a Smithsonian "Art of Video Games" event last week. As reported by Vox Games, Barnett compared the rights of video game creators to design their own stories to those of authors in other media.

If computer games are art than I fully endorse the author of the artwork to have a statement about what they believe should happen. Just as J.K. Rowling can end her books and say that is the end of Harry Potter. I don't think she should be forced to make another one.

Did Bioware cave?

Warning: The remainder of this piece contains significant spoilers for the ending to Mass Effect 3.

So, is Bioware effectively giving up some of its authorial control over its own work by ceding the direction of the continuing Mass Effect narrative to a group of angry fans? The tone of today's comments certainly suggests as much, offering nothing but respect for and commiseration with fan criticism. Some in the press and fan communities are already reporting that Muzyka's comments are confirmation that the company is in fact working on a "new ending" for the game.

But at the moment it's hard to say how much today's comments represent a real change of direction for Bioware and how much is just lip service to calm a rowdy section of the fan base. We've always known that the Mass Effect 3 story would be continued through future downloadable content, after all, and some of the game's branching endings already strongly suggested that Commander Shepard's story was not, in fact, complete.

The only somewhat concrete information we have about Bioware's upcoming "game content initiatives" for now is that they will help fans "seeking more clarity to questions or looking for more closure." While this could technically describe a set of completely new ending options for the games, it sounds more like a description for a series of side-stories that help explain and flesh out the existing narrative.

We won't know the extent to which the game's current ending has really been altered until this new content is actually released. Even then, it will be hard to determine how different that content would have been in some counterfactual world where Bioware simply continued the Mass Effect story in the way it intended, absent any organized fan outcry.

Still, even paying lip service to the rights of fans to guide changes to a story could set a dangerous precedent. While gamers are used to choosing paths through branching interactive narratives, letting a small group of consumers actually craft the shape of those paths is just asking for trouble. Not only would game creators in such an environment be constantly second guessing their decisions for fear of upsetting some subgroup of players or another, but any player-guided changes would run a large risk of succumbing to the banality of design by a committee of amateurs, pushing game narrative further into safe and predictable territory.

It's good to hear that Bioware is "working hard to maintain the right balance" between developer control and fan input on this score, because the company is currently walking a very thin tightrope suspended between being too accomodating to fan demands on one side and too deaf to valid concerns on the other.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.